1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements to the electromechanical battery (EMB), and more specifically, it relates to a fail safe version of the EMB with added power control capabilities.
2. Description of Related Art
A particular configuration of permanent magnets (the "Halbach Array") and of stator windings is known, where the windings are locating within a re-entrant insulating cylinder that forms a vacuum barrier, so that the windings are located "in air," i.e., not in an evacuated space. For the purpose of this disclosure, the important features of this design are two: (i) the generator/motor assembly is entirely ironless in nature, not involving any ferromagnetic material and (ii), the dipole field produced by the Halbach Array is highly uniform within the region bounded by the magnets. The consequence of (i) is that the coupling of flux within the windings is accurately determined by geometry alone, being independent of current levels (not true in the presence of ferromagnetic materials). The consequence of (ii) is that the flux intercepted by windings lying inside the Halbach Array is closely proportional to the area of these windings that lies within the array.